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Published Date 2/5/2024

. Follow the bouncing ball. Those old enough to know what that means (an outrageously popular 1960s sing-along TV show) have probably lived in all the homes they intend to have owned. Those who don’t wonder whether the 2024 housing is just bouncing back and forth, leaving them uncertain. According to a recent Realtor.com report and Margaret Heidenry, there have been some signs of housing inventory recovering, with the number of homes actively for sale growing by 7.9% year over year in January, That’s “notably higher compared to last year,” according to Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale. Add to that the fact that mortgage rates have also subsided from their 23-year high, and you’d think the ball is going in the right direction. Despite this double dose of promising news, however, Hale doesn’t expect that America’s housing affordability crisis will improve all that quickly. She predicts it will take a few baby steps forward, and maybe one or two back. “While gradually falling mortgage rates are helping slow the cost to purchase a home, the housing market will likely bounce back and forth between improvement and status quo over the next several months,” she explains. And then there is the pre-and-post-pandemic number for just about everything, right? While housing inventory may be up annually, it is still down compared with typical pre-pandemic levels from 2017 to 2019 by a whopping 39.7%. So it’s all relative. The Fed seems happier but is not yet convinced we are safe — in part because its battle against inflation is not yet over. Don’t forget that it raised interest rates to bring inflation down. And while it doesn’t set mortgage rates, mortgage rates generally follow the same trajectory as the Fed’s short-term interest rates. Reach out for more! Realtor, TBWS

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